Hi Simon. Bill Akins here. I saw your questions and
hope Rick won't mind if I also answer you as well as he.
I will take them in the order you
asked.
1. The regulator will be mounted outside the hull
but its mouthpiece (or tube leading from the mouthpiece) will be going thru the
hull into its interior.
2. Rick may know the pressure difference required
to allow the damand valve to open, but it doesn't matter if he does or doesn't.
The demand
valve will open automatically when the outside
water pressure exerts enough pressure on the rubber diaphram, and close when the
inside pressure
presses the rubber diaphram back. As Rick said,
automatic equalization.
3. You are correct that there would be no pressure
difference if the diaphram and mouthpiece were in the same compartment. That's
why they are not.
4. Rick will be placing his regulators low in the
hull so they will activate BEFORE the rest of the hull reaches that depth to
overcome the lag time it takes
for the regs to equalize the hull and there should
be no hull structure concern. If he built a reasonably sturdy ambient hull it
wouldn't have that much pressure on it
even if there were a few seconds lag time before it
equalized, but with his regs low, they activate early actually keeping a slight
overpressure in the cabin and as
Rick said he would see any leaks as bubbles
outside. Rick, add to this if I missed anything. Hope this helped you
Simon.
Bill Akins.
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